Summer of Sin #3
SLOTH
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: Kids Can Sure Get the Wrong Idea
1. There was a boy who was lazy and couldn’t wake up early. His mom wanted to teach him a lesson about the benefits of waking up early. She said: “Son, I’m going to tell you a story and then I want you to tell me what you learned from it.” “Ok.”
2. Mom; “Imagine two birds. First bird always wakes up early and can find bugs to feed himself and his family. The second bird wakes up late every day and can’t find anything to eat. So what’s the moral of this story?”
3. Son; “It teaches me that the bugs that wake up early are the most likely to be eaten by the birds!”
4. We’re continuing our series on the “Summer of Sin” today on the Seven Deadly Sins. Today we’re examining “Sloth.”
B. WHAT IS SLOTH?
1. The term “sloth” conjures up images of the lazy animal on Youtube or the movie Zootopia, but historically, the church has taken sloth so seriously that they included it in their list of 7 deadly sins. Why? The church believes that sloth is the failure of a life; failure to be good STEWARDS of the opportunities and blessings God gives us, is that serious!
2. Sins are the bad things that we DO, but sloth is the sin of all the good things we DON’T do. Sloth is defined as the failure to do what needs to be done when it needs doing. Like the Kamikaze pilot who flew 17 missions (pause for laughter; he should’ve flown only one!).
3. Today – we’re looking at a “type of person,” called “the sluggard.” I’ve caught glimpses of the sluggard a time or two, especially in the mirror. The sluggard is a kind of cartoonish warning to all of us about slothfulness, laziness, & idleness – it affects all of us from time to time.
I. THE RUINED VINEYARD
A. DETERIORATION IS THE NATURAL OUTCOME
1. Everything, left to itself, tends to go to disintegration and deterioration. Have you ever bought a new car? As soon as you drive it off the dealer’s lot it deteriorates in value. It happens with purchased goods and it happens in relationships.
2. Anything we don’t keep up and work with tends to deteriorate, drift. When we settle for the path of least resistance – then tragedy begins to happen; hopes fade, dreams die, and we’re forced to abandon our potential. Sloth is the great enemy of God’s will for your life.
B. GOD’S WILL? BE PRODUCTIVE
1. God’s will is NOT deterioration, but to be productive. Prov. 24:30-32 says, “I went past the field of a sluggard, past the vineyard of someone who has no sense; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins. I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw.”
2. Have you ever seen a vineyard? A productive vineyard is a thing of beauty. It’s filled with activity – all the planting, vines, stakes, etc. Reality? Someone worked hard & made it happen.
3. The writer observed the opposite -- a vineyard that was a mess and the wall was falling down. The angst was, in that culture, it was a great blessing and privilege to own a piece of property that was capable of being cultivated. This was a picture of the failure of stewardship.
C. GOD GAVE YOU A VINEYARD
1. THIS IS MY ONE AND ONLY CHANCE AT EXISTENCE ON THIS PLANET. When you were born, GOD GAVE YOU YOUR OWN VINEYARD! You have a mind, talents, skills, relationships, resources, opportunities, you have a soul. Everyone gets a vineyard. This is your one and only chance.
2. The good news is you don’t have to do it all on your own. God says, “I will be with you, and in fact, I will do most of the heavy lifting.” But we have a choice: God won’t make anybody take action in their vineyard, you have to choose to do something with your life.
D. LOST POTENTIAL OF THE NEGLECTED VINEYARD
1. The writer says, “I was walking past this vineyard and I thought of what might have been, of all the potential that was lost.” A vineyard wasn’t just a blessing to the one who owned it, but to the whole community. They all got to eat and drink from it.
2. What a blessing the wasted vineyard could have been to the community, but it was lost. It fell tragically short of what it might have been. Why? Was there a fire, drought, or flood? No! It was simply neglect on the part of the vineyard owner.
II. SOLUTIONS: 3 THINGS WE CAN DO NOW
A. WE MUST TAKE ACTION
1. Prov. 12:11 says, “Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies lack judgment.” Do you know any dreamers who never became doers? It’s fine to have visions – but if you never put it into action, it’s bad.
2. I’ve met many church planters with tons of vision, but when it came to hard work – raising money, recruiting the people, and just the perseverance of sticking with it through some of the hard, lean years – “No thanks!”
3. Some people say, “I want my situation perfect – perfect education, marriage, career. And if I can’t have perfection, then I won’t work for anything, because I’m too good to work with the vineyard that I have now.”
4. No! God says, “Start with what you have and build on it!” If there’s going to be improvements to your life, it’s NOT going to be because the vineyard fairy comes along and sprinkles pixie dust on it. It’s going to be because you decided to take action!
B. CHANGE OUR MINDSET
1. According to the writer of Proverbs, there’s a way our mind works that allows us to stay in a pattern of sloth. Prov. 6:9-11, “How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.”
2. This tells how sluggards justify their inactivity. “It’s just a little neglect.” But it turns into weeks, then months, then years. Some of you have a project at home and you’ve been saying, “I’ll get to it in a little bit,” like the picture that’s been sitting behind the couch for three years.
3. HUMOR. A guy who went up into his attic found some of his old clothes – a jacket he hadn’t tried on for twenty years. He put it on and found in a pocket a claim ticket for a pair of shoes he’d dropped off to be repaired 20 years before. The store was still there and, in curiosity, he went to the store and said, “Hey, are my shoes ready?” and handed the man the claim ticket. The clerk looked at the ticket and then went into the back room. In a minute he came back out and said, “Come back in a week from Thursday.” Now that is the mind of a sluggard! It’s always, “Come back later!”
4. Notice, the sluggard doesn’t say, “No, I’m NOT going to do it!” If the contrast had been that clear, it would have been a wake-up call. I hope this message is a wakeup call. The danger is NOT that I say “Never,” the danger is that I will say, “A week from Thursday.” Either way, it’s giving myself permission to NOT DO TODAY what God is calling me to do in this moment.
5. Another problem: we sluggards DON’T SEE our sluggardism. Prov. 26:16; “A sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven people who answer discreetly.” The sluggard thinks he/she has perfect wisdom. The sluggard’s excuses appear better than other people’s sound advice. In our culture, we’re in state of denial about sin, especially sloth.
C. ZERO IN ON AREAS OF SLOTH
1. If I said, “Tell me about your faults,” you’d prob say, “Well, I’m such a work-a-holic that....” Nobody says, “Yeah, I’m really lazy and I don’t have motivation.” People don’t admit Laziness. They’re more likely to say, “My problem is I’m working too much! I’m a type-A over-achiever!”
2. But the sluggard still has something to teach us. We may be suffering from SELECTIVE SLOTH. We may be achievers in many areas, and yet have other areas where we’re failing miserably, and we don’t like to think about it. In fact, we may stay extra-busy other places to justify our inactivity in that area. Examples:
a. Like the DAD: great career, climbing that corporate ladder, he’s very connected – except with his KIDS. That’s his area of neglect in his vineyard.
b. Or the MOM, whose on top of everything with the kids; goes to all the games, and she’s on the ball at work, but inside, her SOUL is shriveling up.
c. Or the COUPLE who have a great house, and always having people over, but the truth is, they haven’t had an intimate conversation in a year. The garden of their MARRIAGE is being overgrown with weeds.
d. Or it’s the middle-aged MAN who looks like he has it all together – he’s got the house, the boat, and the car. But the reality is, he’s in so much DEBT that he can’t sleep at night.
3. SUMMARY. One of the reasons selective sloth is so deadly is that we can look at the other areas of our lives where we DO have it going right and then excuse our neglected areas. “Can’t I let this one area slide? It’s just one little spot.” But the truth is – that’s the one spot that’s going to destroy you! So what do we do about it? Acknowledge it – “Ok, here’s an area where I have selective sloth going on.”
III. PUTTING OUR SLOTH BACK IN THE ZOO
A. “GO TO THE ANT”
1. Prov. 6:6-8, “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer & gathers its food at harvest.”
2. This is humbling for us big-brained humans: Take a look at the Ant. He’s got more wisdom than you do. And there’s 2 lessons we can learn from him:
3. First, the ant doesn’t require external motivation (he has “no commander.”). If you wait for someone else to motivate you to get going, you’re in serious trouble. We need to say, “I’m responsible for my vineyard.”
4. Second, the Ant understands, what might be called, “The Law of Opportunity” – that there is a limited season to get things done. Someday Winter’s going to ask, “What did you do all Summer?” We may wish it weren’t summer; it might be an inconvenient, but you know what? It’s the only vineyard that you’ve got and if you’re going to make a wise action, you’ve got to do it today. The Ant understands time and opportunity better than we do!
5. Time passes fast. We turn around and our kids are grown! We don’t get to go back and do it over. We had our day in that vineyard, when they were little and wanted to play. Better do it while you can!
B. SLOTH IS NOT IRREVERSIBLE!
1. The good news is, the Law of Sloth is NOT IRREVERSIBLE WITH GOD! It doesn’t have to get the last word! Jesus came to help us overcome the areas of sloth in our lives. The law of sloth is so weak that if you take just one step of action sloth is pushed back.
2. The hardest time to push a rock is when it is standing still, but you just get that rock moving, and you can move it! The way to start doing anything, is to take just one small step at a time.
3. My mom used to send me to clean my room. I would look at it and just get paralyzed. She’d say, “First, pick up your dirty clothes. Now pick up the Legos. Now...” And in a few steps it would be clean! Say, “This isn’t impossible. I can see it can be done, little by little. It’s not as bad as I thought.” God will help you. Just trust Him to help you take each step.
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. A King in Asia had trouble with one of his messengers who, instead of hurrying to do the King’s business, would loiter, stop and talk to friends, and goof off, while on assignment.
2. The King called him in and said, “You must learn a lesson about focusing on what the King has asked you to do! Here is a spoon filled with oil. You are to carry it to the market place and then come back here.”
3. The King instructed two strong guards, “Keep your swords drawn. If even one drop of oil spills from this man’s spoon, execute him on the spot!”
4. The messenger came back in an hour, shaking. The King said, “What did you see while carrying the spoon?” “Nothing!” Who did you talk to?” “No one!” “Why not?” “For I had my eyes fixed on the spoon, fearing my head would roll in the dust!” The King said, “Good! Let your future service be carried out with such single-minded attention!”
5. The Lesson? If we keep our eyes fixed on doing the will of Jesus Christ, we won’t fall for the distractions of the world. [Adapted, Knight’s Master Book of New Illus., p. 726]
B. WHERE IS GOD CALLING YOU TO TAKE ACTION?
1. FINANCIAL? Prov. 3:9, “Honor the Lord with your wealth, the first fruits of all your crops.” “Yep, that’s where I’m failing. I’ll start next month!” But you don’t. Take a step of faith now.
2. HEALTH. Maybe it’s physical health. “Do you not know that
your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you...? 1 Cor. 6:9. You don’t need to be obsessive, but are you taking care of your health?
3. YOUR SOUL. Jesus said, “What good will is it if a man gains the whole world but loses his soul.” If you’ll take one step toward God, He will take steps toward you.
a. The wonderful thing about God is that He didn’t leave us in our sin: He put a plan into motion: John 3:16. Maybe God is speaking to you about that. Have you ever trusted God for your salvation? “I’ll do that – sometime in the future.” No you need to invite Him now and He will work out all the details.
b. Maybe you’re a follower of Jesus but haven’t been keeping up your relationship with Jesus, He says, “Hey, this isn’t a club membership. I don’t want you to just sign a card and that’s it. I want a relationship with you!”
4. DAILY PRAYER, WORD. Maybe with you it’s a commitment to daily prayer. Or Bible reading. How are going to learn to recognize God’s voice if you’re not in His Word? That’s how you learn to recognize it. Or you need to get into a fellowship group or a place of service.
C. THE CALL
1. This is the only vineyard you’re ever going to get. Take a step and God will respond. “God, will you help me?” “Yes I will.” Go to prayer; find a sacred space.
2. Holy Spirit, show me the area I’ve been in denial about. I’ve been neglecting this area; I don’t want to let it continue. This is my only chance. I take it now!” Let’s pray for marriages.
[This is a rewrite of Anthony Scoma’s message of the same title]
